Le mouvement de société du 11 janvier.

The deadly attack against Charlie Hebdo on 7th January 2015 in Paris has resulted in an immense protest and solidarity movement. This event deserves the full attention of researchers in social sciences. Beyond apparent contradictions, the movement displays a series of speeches that are in phase with the ethical and political dimensions of contemporary societies of individuals. In fact, the way issues have been demarcated is significantly different from what the French polity usually proposes. Should the methodology expressed [...]

The texts of this Traversal are position papers. They have been written in the prospect of a conference that will take place in July 2014, organised at Laval University, Quebec, by the Eidolon cartographic research network. The title of the conference will be Mapping Urban Intelligence. The principle of these pre-communications is to prompt a [...]

Projets personnels et/ou projet de société.

The survey carried out on explicit representations of the future among the inhabitants of Geneva’s metropolitan area shows three major groups. The most substantial encompasses individuals that speak little about society as a whole but a lot about their own projects. However, they clearly connect their personal itineraries to the context of their agency. The second group includes people that draw a dark image of the future, which is underpinned by a cyclic model of history and a condemnation [...]

Régimes d’historicité et individus contemporains.

Among the interviews conducted in Geneva, general and abstract speeches on the future are rare. This does not prove that the future is absent from discourses and imaginations ; it could mean that the tools we use do not enable us to detect it. The “No future !” motto only informs us that historicist myths have collapsed. Meanwhile, projects have taken place. By and large, this can be explained by the increase of lifespan time scale degrees of freedom [...]

This Traversal analyses and interprets the outcomes of the GEMS (Geneva Micromega Survey), an interview-based qualitative survey carried out since 2006 on a representative sample of the cross-border Geneva urban area. This inquiry is part of the Dia-Logos project, an exploratory research programme Jacques Lévy launched when he joined EPFL, in 2004. Dia-Logos’ founding principle is based on the observation of a dual deficit in the relations between societal issues and social sciences. On the one hand, works carried [...]

Une victoire des réseaux sur les territoires.

Spatial characteristics are more relevant than socio-economic features to distinguish Romney and Obama’s electoral bodies. A cartographic representation at county level that uses a population cartogram as a base map makes the opposition between both geographies obvious. As in 2008, big cities and other places interfacing with the outside world favoured Barack Obama, whereas outskirts and small cities primarily voted for Mitt Romney. This spatial dichotomy is not surprising considering the parties’ opposing views on the idea of society [...]